Equality & Diversity course timetable

Virtual afternoon tea and chat to share experiences, discuss challenges and get updates on University initiatives and policies to support parents and carers.

Zoom joining details will be provided on your booking confirmation email.

Overall Aims:

• Help recognise your signs of stress and anxiety
• To ‘normalise’ stress, anxiety, worry
• To understand the power of our individual attitude towards stress & anxiety
• To foster resilience and coping with stress and anxiety
• Be given the time in our busy lives to consider our individual responses to stress and anxiety

This workshop will be an opportunity to learn about stress and anxiety and begin to think about our own experiences. Come prepared with a pen and paper as there will be some self-reflective exercises.

• Introduction to stress and anxiety
• Simple breathing technique
• Considering ‘good versus bad’ stress
• Sources of stress
• Difference between anxiety and stress
• Individual symptoms

Delivered by Euan Ambrose from the University Counselling Centre

Joining instructions will be provided on your booking confirmation email.

November’s networking discussion will focus on work/life balance.

Having a good work/life balance is described as ‘finding peace and balance between the demands of work and those of personal fulfillment'. But is there really such a thing as work/life balance? What does work/life balance mean to you? Has your focus changed at different stages of your life? Has working during the pandemic changed your view on what’s important?

What advice and approach do you have on this topic? Join us to discuss these questions further and meet new colleagues.

These sessions, specifically for postdocs and researchers, provide a safe space to hear about race-related issues and reflect on your own racialised identity. You will have the opportunity to contribute to the discussion, and tools and resources will be shared to increase your understanding of systemic racism and help you build your capacity to challenge racism.

University staff members who have attended similar training run by this experienced team appreciated having "a safe space to share feelings and experiences" and found that "having the chance and time to reflect on the issues was very helpful and eye-opening." They also found that the selected resources and tools were "really well chosen and very helpful."

The training will be split into two 1h sessions. This will allow us to make space for discussion while not making the zoom meeting too long.

Everyone is warmly invited to attend.

Please only book if you can attend both sessions.

Overall Aims

• Help recognise your signs of stress and anxiety
• To ‘normalise’ stress, anxiety, worry
• To understand the power of our individual attitude towards stress & anxiety
• To foster resilience and coping with stress and anxiety
• Be given the time in our busy lives to consider our individual responses to stress and anxiety

The focus of this workshop will be on worry and anxious thoughts and how they impact our wellbeing. We will look at strategies to help address worries directly as well as activities to distract and soothe us. There will be two relaxation exercises and time for Q&A at the end.

• Introduction – The worried mind
• Progressive relaxation exercise
• How worry and anxious thoughts impact our wellbeing
• CBT strategies to manage worry
• Assessment and action process
• Soothing and distraction
• Rest and relaxation
• Guided meditation

Delivered by Sarah Hughes from the University Counselling Centre

Joining instructions will be provided in your booking confirmation email.

Overall Aims:

• Help recognise your signs of stress and anxiety
• To ‘normalise’ stress, anxiety, worry
• To understand the power of our individual attitude towards stress & anxiety
• To foster resilience and coping with stress and anxiety
• Be given the time in our busy lives to consider our individual responses to stress and anxiety

In this workshop, we will take a deeper look at stress and anxiety, work on what our triggers are, and any behaviours that might maintain an anxious state.

• What Triggers anxiety?
• Think more about the physical symptoms
• What maintains anxiety
• Negative Automatic Thoughts
• Intrusive Thoughts

Delivered by Euan Ambrose from the University Counselling Centre

Joining instructions will be provided on your booking confirmation email.

This session will provide the opportunity to hear from four women about their careers, what has impacted on their choices and any lessons they have learnt along the way.

We aim to hold a number of these sessions during the academic year, so please get in contact if you would be happy to share your story – email jenny.rampling@admin.cam.ac.uk.

The session helps to increase the understanding of systemic racism and race. It encourages participants to reflect on their own identity, building confidence to speak about race and the capacity to challenge racism.

The training will be split into two 1h sessions. This will allow us to make space for discussion while not making the zoom meeting too long.

Everyone is warmly invited to attend.

Please only book if you can attend both sessions.

The session helps to increase the understanding of systemic racism and race. It encourages participants to reflect on their own identity, building confidence to speak about race and the capacity to challenge racism.

The training will be split into two 1h sessions. This will allow us to make space for discussion while not making the zoom meeting too long.

Everyone is warmly invited to attend.

Please only book if you can attend both sessions.

This session, delivered by Marta Costa and Laura Fachal, will introduce StepWide, a leadership programme developed by postdocs for cis and trans women postdocs. Current initiatives to bridge the gender gap focus on academic staff, with little support for those trying to reach that particular career stage. StepWide was designed to question and broaden current and constrained ideas about leadership and develop the confidence and skills that will allow women postdocs to increase their visibility, improving promotion and progression.

Marta Costa is a Senior Research Associate at the Department of Zoology working on creating a map of the nervous system of fruit flies. She did her undergraduate in Biology in Lisbon, Portugal, followed by an MSc in Neuroscience at UCL. She then moved to Cambridge for her PhD, followed by a postdoc. She is also a Research Associate at Lucy Cavendish College.

Laura Fachal is a Senior Staff Scientist at Wellcome Sanger Institute. She earned her BS in Veterinary, MSc in Biotechnology and PhD from University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. She completed her postdoc at the Centre for Cancer Genetic Epidemiology, University of Cambridge. She is also a Research Associate at Lucy Cavendish College.

The session helps to increase the understanding of systemic racism and race. It encourages participants to reflect on their own identity, building confidence to speak about race and capacity to challenge racism.

The training will be split into two 1h sessions. This will allow us to make space for discussion while not making the zoom meeting too long.

Everyone is warmly invited to attend.

Please only book if you can attend both sessions.

A survey of our staff diversity network members and stakeholder groups in Spring 2021 showed there was overwhelming support to set up a new network for disabled staff and staff with long-term conditions. 67% of respondents were in favour of setting up a network run through mailing groups and virtual meetings.

What people said they would like to get from such a network is a safe space to bring issues to and get support, advice and information (60%), and a body that would advocate for its members and inform institutional policy (20%).

We learnt that people would like the network to help those supporting colleagues and caring for disabled family members and those with long-term conditions, and that it would be very helpful to have a repository of resources and guidance easily accessible.

At this event

At this event we would like to think about the particular impacts of COVID on disabled staff and those with long-term conditions and present our initial thoughts on how this staff network could work.

Speakers will include Dr Hisham Ziauddeen, the University’s Disability and Wellbeing Champion, Professor Alison Dunning, Disabled Staff Network Chair and Dr Miriam Lynn, Head of the University’s ED&I Section.

We would be grateful if you could make time to attend and would greatly appreciate your comments and feedback in developing our plans for this new staff network.

Sign Up To The Network To find out more about the new Disabled Staff Network, and to join, please see the DSN webpage

*Date for your diary!*

Developing the Disabled Staff Network: Focus Group

After this event, we would like to have more conversations going into the detail of how we can best support members and potential members of the Disabled Staff Network.

If you would like to take part, please also sign up to one of the sessions being run in January 2022 (see the events listed in the left margin).

The session helps to increase the understanding of systemic racism and race. It encourages participants to reflect on their own identity, building confidence to speak about race and capacity to challenge racism.

The training will be split into two 1h sessions. This will allow us to make space for discussion while not making the zoom meeting too long.

Everyone is warmly invited to attend.

Please only book if you can attend both sessions.

The session helps to increase the understanding of systemic racism and race. It encourages participants to reflect on their own identity, building confidence to speak about race and the capacity to challenge racism.

The training will be split into two 1h sessions. This will allow us to make space for discussion while not making the zoom meeting too long.

Everyone is warmly invited to attend.

Please only book if you can attend both sessions.

The session helps to increase the understanding of systemic racism and race. It encourages participants to reflect on their own identity, building confidence to speak about race and the capacity to challenge racism.

The training will be split into two 1h sessions. This will allow us to make space for discussion while not making the zoom meeting too long.

Everyone is warmly invited to attend.

Please only book if you can attend both sessions.

The Women’s Staff Network would like to bring together members who would like to discuss and share their experiences of their menopause journey.

The group’s aim is to provide a supportive environment and informal discussion.

When anyone mentions resolutions at this time of the year, most of us tend to think – what’s the point, as we never end up sticking to them anyway.

Drink less, eat less, lose weight or stop this or stop that. It’s all so exhausting. So what’s the alternative?

This session delivered by Elena Carpenter (Personal Performance / Life Coach and Lean Practitioner) will give you the space, time and tools for going about achieving your aspirations and ambitions more successfully.

This event is hosted and provided by the University of Cambridge Women’s Staff Network and is open to members and non-members. To join the Women’s Staff Network, please visit our website

We would like to have more conversations going into the detail of how we can best support members and potential members of the Disabled Staff Network.

If you would like to take part, please sign up to one of the two Focus Group sessions running in January 2022.

More information to follow.

This talk is being deliver by the Women in Higher Education Network (WHEN) and hosted by Professor Eef Hogervorst and Dr Emma Odonnell.

This talk focuses on menopause and the effects it has on cardiovascular health. Emma will touch on menopause and its symptoms and how exercise training can help moderate these symptoms. She will also briefly discuss the current consensus on the risks and benefits of hormone replacement therapy and the effect these hormones have on cardiovascular health.

The University of Cambridge Women’s Staff Network are a partner institution for WHEN as both Networks are dedicated to speeding up equity of opportunity for women in higher education. All WSN members can join WHEN for free on their website.

Professor Eef Hogervorst - Professor of Psychology - University of Loughborough Eef Hogervorst did her PhD in at the University of Maastricht on the modelling of age-related cognitive decline. She subsequently worked at the Universities of Oxford (1998-2005), Arkansas Medical Sciences USA and Cambridge as a neuropsychologist and epidemiologist to investigate risk factors for Alzheimer's disease and age-related cognitive decline.

Dr Emma O'Donnell - Lecturer, Exercise Physiology - University of Loughborough Emma graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Exercise Science from Brighton University before completing an MSc in Exercise Science at the University of Toronto, Canada. She then went on to complete her PhD in Exercise Science with a specialisation in cardiovascular physiology at the University of Toronto, Canada (2013). After completing her PhD, Emma undertook post-doctoral studies in the Clinical Cardiovascular Physiology Laboratory at the Toronto General Hospital, Canada. Emma’s research focuses on the cardiovascular health of women, with emphasis on the independent and combined effects of estrogen deficiency and exercise training in premenopausal and postmenopausal women. In January 2016, she returned to the UK to take the post of Lecturer of Exercise Physiology at the University of Loughborough. Emma is a member of The American Physiological Society and The British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences. The Zoom joining link will be provided on your booking confirmation email.